🔁 Assembly Loops & Branching

In Assembly, controlling flow is manual and precise. You’ll jump around labels and use conditional instructions to make loops and decisions.

⏩ Branching Instructions

jmp label — unconditional jump
je label — jump if equal (zero flag set)
jne label — jump if not equal
jg label — jump if greater (signed)
jl label — jump if less (signed)

🔄 Looping with Labels

You manually create loops by jumping back to labels until a condition breaks the loop.

📚 Example Code: Loop Counting Down

section .text
    global _start

_start:
    mov ecx, 5          ; Set counter to 5

loop_start:
    ; Here you’d do some work — we'll just decrement counter
    dec ecx             ; Decrement counter by 1
    cmp ecx, 0          ; Compare ecx with 0
    jne loop_start      ; Jump back if ecx != 0

    mov eax, 1          ; sys_exit
    int 0x80

💡 Pro Tip: Flags are your control signals — after cmp, they decide which jump happens.

🖥️ Simulated Output

Loop ran 5 times, ecx reached 0 and stopped.